


Docket Ending 001 - VERTEX

by ilija



Series: Vertex [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Child Neglect, Dysfunctional Family, Introspection, Mental Instability, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Imbalance, Statutory Rape, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilija/pseuds/ilija
Summary: Surprisingly, there's a manila folder on the desk. In a digital age it's almost laughable in its antiquity.Fifteen files lay inside, in wait; with steady hands, the Pandora's Box is opened.





	1. File #1.1 Kazimieras Naujokas

**Author's Note:**

> My 100% original work. Heed the tags. This is a heavy story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NAME: Kazimieras Naujokas  
> DOB: 21 May 25XX  
> SECTION: 1

_How old was I when I learned a mother’s touch._ **  
**

Kazimieras Naujokas, age four, renders a Kandinsky from memory. Without the aid of his parents his work is curated and sells for thousands. Had it not had the Naujokas name attached to it he’s sure it wouldn’t sell. So he lights his work ablaze and his parents sell the ashes for almost as much as the painting itself.

_Kazimieras Naujokas is me. Was me. I have his name._

At age six he witnesses his parents fuck atop an Ionian column, one of the few remaining in the world, and Kaz (he’s big enough to be called Kaz now) can still see the wet remains of their lovemaking for publicity. They’re taken in by police overnight but home by morning, a barely there dent in their bank account. His mother drinks her wine and his father chews with his mouth open as if nothing happened. As if their son hadn’t stayed up the whole night with shaking knees and sweaty hands.

He eats slowly that morning.

At age eight he opens his own gallery–that is, his mother and father opened a gallery with his name–and it sells tremendously. After that night he’s wealthier than half the children in his country and their parents combined. The feeling of success should be there, but he stands in the middle of the empty gallery staring at nothing until his eyes sting and his mother has woken up.

At age ten he falls in love. Not with art nor with money, nor the other girls in his classes who would blush and wave and give him notes and candy.

“Kazimieras, this is your new house help. Her name is Gabija.” His mother’s hand feels like nothing against his shoulder in comparison to the light of Gabija’s smile. His eyes widen, like plates in his small head, and for the first time he feels the sting of a blush rise to his cheeks.

_Gabija, Gabija, she was so beautiful, her auburn hair tied back with a ribbon. It fell curled around her face. That naked face that saw neither touch nor blemish, as round as the moon but as bright as the sun. Gabija, Gabija, I loved you so._

She turns to greet the mother and son. “Mistress, young Master.” Her voice rings like tinkling chimes and Kaz’s tiny ten year old heart skips a beat.

_Her young face and gentle demeanor; I fell in love with my mother. The ideal of a mother at least._

Gabija is kind and holds Kaz’s hand across the street. “Young master, what do you like to do? Since we’re out I’d like to take you somewhere.”

“Not a lot,” he ducks his chin to his chest and mumbles. “My name’s Kaz.”

“But there must be something!”

“I mean, I like drawing, I guess.”

“But you draw all the time as an artist don’t you?” Her voice holds no complaint, just gentle regard. “Since it’s our first meeting I would like us to start off as good friends.”

“Uh,” he squeezes her hand, “I like… ice cream…” As if he’s shy in admitting it–more like that was so lame. But not five minutes later Gabija is talking to the elderly man at the shop on the corner, sliding money across the counter as he slides a parfait glass of chocolate-mint-chocolate chip-whip cream-and a cherry on top. His mother would faint on spot just from the thought of all the sugar in the cream alone but Gabija just sits, prim on her stool as he takes bites so fast his eyes brim with tears from brain freeze and grinning too hard.

_I loved her, I loved her, I loved her I loved her I loved her. The first light of my life, as if being born for the first time. Money? Fame? Does any of it matter when a man is fell by Cupid’s arrow? It didn’t to me, all because of that tender smile she reserved solely for me. I, an unworthy treasure._

“Mama,” Kaz asks during dinner, swinging his legs back and forth. They dangle almost to the ground; growing pains make his ankles hurt. “When’s Gabi’s birthday?”

“Oh, Gabija?” She touches a finely manicured hand to her chin, dabbing away at a drop of wine. “Hm, that is this week, isn’t it? We’ll have to give her the day off.” She shrugs her shoulders and returns to her duck. Kaz, infuriated by his mother’s vague answer, whines, “But don’t you know the day?”

“Not off the top of my head. Friday– today is Tuesday, right? Yes, definitely Friday. Ask your father to mark the calendar.”

The minute relief at the time frame courses through him and he starts swinging his legs again. “Okay, I definitely won’t forget,” and shoves a bite into his mouth.

_I painted a portrait in a day. My fastest and most wonderful work at the time, not for a gallery but for her. I drew her with the air of an angel surrounding her, the kind loving ones depicted in small children’s books. The idea of the archangels with eight eyes and screaming banshee voices, the ones come to cut down sinners where they stand, the accurate ones, never occurred to me._

Gabija cries the moment her fingers touch the canvas when Kaz hands it to her. Luckily her tear drops miss the acrylic. “Oh, young master, thank you so much.” Her voice wavers, too full of emotion and tears. Despite himself, Kaz smiles.

“It’s you.”

“It is! It– it’s so beautiful.” She touches her fingers, free of multiple rings and polish, to her own damp lips, curling in a watery smile. “I’m so lucky that young master chose me to draw. Me, looking so nice–”

Kaz can’t believe his ears. “Don’t be so submissive!” Standing up straight he’s finally her height; he can look at her straight in the eyes instead of up and her brightness hurts his eyes even more. “What reason do you have to be modest? You’re the most beautiful woman in the world!” He’s far from pissed; awestruck, if anything, at her rejection of her own beauty.

Gabija falls silent as her tears stop. The gentle smile returns; she bridges the short gap between them and kisses Kaz on the cheek.

_The flutter of angel wings; my first kiss._

“Thank you, young master. I’ll treasure it for as long as I live.”

_It was the first and last time I saw her cry from happiness._

Kaz grows longer, lankier. More trips to the tailors in his daily planner, more trips to the salon. Soon he towers over his mother and Gabija. At age thirteen he leaves the country for two weeks and writes Gabija letters, sends her perfume from France and silk from Italy. He asks for pictures. Gabija doesn’t have a mobile phone so he buys her one from Germany. The first message she sends is ‘thank you’.

She meets him in the airport wearing the scarf from Florence; it’s soft against his chest when she wraps his arms around him. Her head comes just under his nose and she smells like the Mediterranean. “Did your travel find you well, young master?” She pulls away to smile at him, arms length. She can’t feel his heart racing.

“It was tiring.”

In the car he sits behind the driver, Gabija on his right. Underneath the static-y buzz of the top forties station he can hear her fiddling with her handbag. No coins rustle in the bottom, it’s a simple design, fitting for her with her naked face and unadorned hands and uniform.

It seems she’s unable to figure out what to do with her hands until she finally lifts the partition separating them from the front. “Young master–”

“Gabija.” He answers without a thought.

“I– missed you.” Her confession is quiet but Kaz doesn’t miss it. He doesn’t look either, cold sweat breaking out on his back. _Missed him_?

“Missed me?” The feeling in Kaz’s gut is unfamiliar, swirling. He clenches his fists, crossed under his arms, until the rings on his fingers leave marks and his knuckles turn white.

“I did. I loved your letters, but it’s not the same.” A hint of a smile graces her lips. “Would you tell me about it again when we arrive?”

“I could tell you about it now.”

“I want to sit down with you and hear it. I can’t concentrate in a moving car.” She raises her hand to tuck a fallen curl behind her ear just as Kaz lifts his own to do them. For a second the air is frozen between them, his hand bumps into her wrist and he carefully pulls it away.

“That was rude of me, wasn’t it.”

“I–” Her hand stays beside her face, a shield. “No.”

“It was.” Kaz, pubescent and stubborn, sniffs and straightens his posture, pouting at the back of the driver’s head through the partition. Once more, an empty silence fills the gap between them.

The turn signal blinks in time to his steadying heart. They turn into the block leading to the Naujokas mansion. “I’m sorry, young master.”

“It’s fine.”

“I–”

“It’s fine, Gabi.” It’s the first time he’s used her nickname to her face and immediately he’s horrified by his outburst.

_My weakness. A life full of art and fame and money at my fingertips from birth, but the void was filled by a woman._

He ignores Gabija’s wishes to help him unpack. Four boxes and three suitcases later he’s tossing clothes and small packages onto his bed; he’ll probably end up sleeping on it. He almost misses the rap at his door.

“Come in.” A jacket sails over his head to land plop! on his desk.

Gabija looks almost frail against the size of the door, a sad Madonna in stained glass. “Young master, are you almost done unpacking?”

“Nope,” Kaz answers flippantly but falls back into his desk chair. “But I give up.”

Gabija bites her lips and her hands clench, folded in front of her skirt.

“What?”

“You called me Gabi.”

Fuck, oh fuck. Kaz knows too many curse words for his age and they’re filtering through his head. Why oh why does he have to be scared when there are no guns and no bombs, only a single woman in front of him; he’s glad he’s sitting down. “Yes. Because that’s your name.”

“I’m– I’m Gabija, aren’t I?” Kaz’s heart throbs.

“Gabi to me. I’ve never called you Gabija. Just ask mother.”

Her hands stop fidgeting but she doesn’t look up from the floor. Kaz gives her thirty seconds before swiveling in his chair away from her and pretends to fold the jacket he threw aside. His cheeks are burning for the second time in his life and he wishes he could stick his head in ice water.

Gabija takes timid, silent steps to where Kaz is seated. He hears nothing and doesn’t stop his fiddling with the fabric until a soft hand brushes against his cheek.

It’s like a lightning bolt hits him right in the spine. His mother had never held his hand, his father barely touched him anyway, but Gabija walks forward silent but sure and blesses him with the gentle touch of fingertips that have never seen the hard scrub of menial labor.

Kaz doesn’t move. Can’t move. He sits there for a good two minutes, hot and cold with the excitement of an unknown feeling.

_Fear, it was fear. Guarded by marble walls and frigid relationships I, lonely, felt fear in the touch of a woman._

_That should have been my first sign._

Gabija presses her palm against Kaz’s cheek with the gentlest of pressure until he turns with the chair to face her. He doesn’t get a look at her eyes when she kisses him.

Now he’s cold, frozen; her tongue is in his mouth and her hands are warm and he doesn’t know what to do with his own. Gabija, Gabi, the taste of salt and lipstick and mint and woman sticks in his mouth.

_The void was filled by the wrong woman._

She fucks him amongst the scattered boxes of jewelry and clothing, new technology; the hinges of a pocket watch break when she rolls him over and takes him, on top. “Tell me about Italy, young master,” she pleads in a whisper against his ear that chips at Kaz’s soul long since frozen. “Tell me about the ocean.”

“It’s as pretty as you,” he chokes, his hands shuddering on her hips. “You’re prettier.” And she smiles into his mouth.

***

His father’s chair is as big as ever despite his own height. Kaz rests his arms languidly on the rests and leans back. “Kaz,” his father greets from across the room. “What is it you called me in for? I’m running behind schedule.”

“I called Petrauskas and told him. It’s important,” he tries to make himself sound every bit the fourteen year old that he is despite the emptiness in his voice. “It’s about Gabija.”

“Ah.” He’s disinterested; Kaz tastes the excitement of the moment leading up to his next words.

“Gabija fucked me.”

Immediately his father stiffens and takes angry steps towards Kaz. The collar of his shirt is going to leave a bruise where his father yanks him by the collar far too hard. “Where did you hear that sort of language?”

“I’m fourteen, Father, and Gabija taught me,” his shaky laughter would have been mistaken for nervousness to the average listener, “she said she’ll teach me how to fuck, and she did. She taught me everything.”

The veins on his father’s hands pop under the skin. Then, just as suddenly, he’s released far too easily for his liking.

“How many times?”

“Once.”

_And twice, and three times. Did we ever stop? My memories are so heated. I drowned in her. To survive drowning one has to come up for air._

That night the Naujokas parents are absent from dinner. One of the serving staff gnaws her lip nervously and averts her eyes when she sets Kaz’s food in front of him and cries out when he grabs her by the front of her shirt.

“You’d like a bit too, wouldn’t you.” His voice is a harsh serpent’s hiss. He frees her and she flees, crying into one hand. Restless, Kaz stands and begins making his way down the hallway to the foyer, suspicious of his parents’ non appearance and of Gabija’s as well. The door is open to his father’s office and his heart rate flinches when he hears the rumble of his father’s voice echo down the hallway.

He breathes in once before entering, casual and cool, as if he just so happened to be passing by. His mother and father are standing in front of the wall to wall bookcase in front of Gabija who sits on a simple folding chair. Tears stream down her face and they glitter almost comically when she whips her head around to see who had entered the chamber.

Her eyes open wider than Kaz has ever seen before.

_Save for the time I fucked her in the ass over my own parents’ bed._

“Young master…” her voice is so quiet it could have been mistaken for the wind. She rises on unsteady legs and runs to Kaz, hands outheld in a plea. “Young master, what did you tell them?!”

Kaz lets Gabija pound her fists against his chest and doesn’t wince when her shriek climaxes into a sob. Her hair sticks in her wet eyelashes, mouth open in a helpless cry. “Nothing you don’t already know, Gabija.” He spits the name and Gabija flinches as if she’s actually been spit on.

“What did I do? Why a-are you so angry?” Pitiful Gabija hunches over and clutches at Kaz’s shirtsleeves, sobbing and begging for answers. Kaz is still not looking at her.

“What do you mean, what did I do?” Suddenly the light in his eye dulls and he turns his gaze downward to look at the back of her head, her hair falling in soft wisps down her neck. He doesn’t feel a heartbeat within him when he demands, “Look at me.”

Her trembling hands shake his arms when she turns her face upward toward him, Judas begging for mercy from Christ. Kaz grabs her by the face and brings them nose to nose, his eyes wide and pupils shrunk to pinpoints in a pool of hazel.

“You fucked me, Gabija. You fucked me.”

_I wanted to kiss her solely to bite off her lips. But I, a sinner, could never hurt an angel._

Kaz releases her and she collapses into a sobbing heap. Without feeling Kaz looks up to where his parents are standing, observant. “That’s all. May I go?”

Gabija rises to a half stance, just enough to run out leaving only the click of her heels echoing behind her. Her tears fall so fast she can’t make a sound to go with them.

“Yes. You may.”

That night Kaz forces the same serving staff that he shook up to serve him and him specifically. He didn’t do anything, but he did enjoy watching her sweat beside him as he enjoyed his dinner.

He turns fifteen two weeks after the event. Over dinner, boar and chestnuts and poppy seed rolls, one of the men at the door enters the chambers and beckons to Kaz’s father. He leaves for only a minute before returning.

“Gabija’s been found dead.”

The bread in Kaz’s throat immediately dries out.

“She wasn’t seen returning home from work so people got worried and checked up on her.”

Kaz stares unblinking into his plate. His hand does not shake.

His father places a hand on Kaz’s back when he tells his mother, “She hung herself from her light fixture.”

There’s thirty minutes total missing from Kaz’s memory bank. He can remember the feel of the blankets in his first bed and the first time he traveled on airplane but from the time he left his kitchen running to making it out of breath in front of Gabija’s apartment–he remembers nothing.

Despite his lean form his feet fall in heavy desperate thuds as he scales the seven flights of stairs to her apartment. The door is open; he can see crime scene tape stuck along the walls. As if walking underwater, he steps across the threshold.

The scarf Kaz bought for her is still wrapped around the neck of the ceiling light, the noose still in its grotesque halo shape. Gabija’s body isn’t there, long since gone cold on a steel slab in the morgue. Kaz has never seen a bruise on her; he can’t picture a necklace of patchy darkened skin encircling her neck like an invisible grip. She’s just as pretty dead as she is alive, in Kaz’s mind.

A chill filters through the room when he touches the frayed cut across the fabric. It signals snow. Her apartment must have been too hot, otherwise why else would she open a window? It makes sense to Kaz. If he had come over the night before, just to pass by, wondering at what light through yonder window breaks? It is the west, where Gabija’s sun has set.

_Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon._

Her portrait hangs over the couch, intact and in the shadow of the broken noose. Her angel’s smile overshadowed by the clouds and curtains. Like moving through quicksand, Kaz steps onto the couch and takes the frame in hand, looking at the bleeding watercolor blue of her eyes and chalk-smudged smile.

His fist lands directly on her nose, between her lovely eyes and quick dash eyebrows, blood and glass spilling down her front.

_Until death do us part._

The only promise kept in his life, broken. ‘I’ll treasure it for as long as I live’.

_Until death do us part._

Her words echo in Kaz’s ears as he continues clawing the picture into bits of bloodstained paper and glass shards stabbing through the scraps.

_Until death do us part._

_Should’ve taken it with you on your way to hell, bitch._

He doesn’t realize he’s gasping for breath until the portrait is bloody pulp in his hands and his palm prints are smeared across the wall. The frame, now empty, hangs as straight as it did before.


	2. File #2.1 Yeo Jin-hwan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NAME: Yeo Jin-hwan  
> DOB: 21 Sept 25XX  
> SECTION: 2.1

_Start from the beginning. A film reel fade to white, then to black again. The transition card: Day Zero. I am born._

Jin-hwan’s mother is on her toes trying desperately to adjust the curtains, too high for her short stature. “Oh, if only your father were here,” she complains to herself, the curtain just a couple centimeters shy of her dainty fingertips.

“Nuh uh, no he doesn’t,” Jin-hwan, four and self assured, shoves aside his book and stands on the couch arm, hands stretched out in front of him. “You have me!”

“I do! My favorite problem solver.” She takes Jin-hwan in her arms and lifts him high, higher than he’s ever been before. “Now reach and pull towards mommy.” He does as instructed–let there be light! Sun filters through the room and makes Jin-hwan squint but he smiles when his mother kisses him on the cheek, praise without words lest his father hear. “Now let’s go see how dinner is doing, okay?”

“I want the sweet fish.”

“Only for dessert, okay? I’ll have them make something special for us. We have to wake up to see appa tomorrow.”

“Why can’t grandfather come see us? He lives a long way away.” Jin-hwan mumbles around his fingers before his mother pulls them out again.

“He doesn’t much care for the city, but he has a big yard for you to explore. Will you find me the prettiest flower in the garden and show me when we leave?”

“Promise! Super promise!” Once more she kisses his cheek, the smile still in place.

_No more days, only years. Year Four: I make a discovery._

“ _Halabeojinim_ ,” Jin-hwan greets his grandfather with a bow. His mother simply giggles and leans down beside him.

“Jin-hwan, he’s your grandfather, you don’t have to be so polite!” It’s too bad for him, Jin-hwan bites his lip. His grandfather is short, shorter than his mother, but has all the sternness of two of his fathers and he can’t help but step behind his mother’s leg. “Appa, I’m so glad to see you.” She hugs him before stepping back and placing a palm atop Jin-hwan’s head. “Is it okay if Jin-hwan looks around? He’s going treasure hunting today.”

If Jin-hwan had been looking at his mother he would have seen her look at his grandfather, a bit of a plea in her eyes. Instead his eyes are locked on his grandfather, who simply shrugs and nods. With a final stroke of her fingers through his hair, Jin-hwan’s mother leaves him behind with a silent sliding of the door behind her, seeing him off. When the latch clicks Jin-hwan toes off his shoes and starts his investigation.

_I don’t know much about flowers. A four year old doesn’t either. My mother probably didn’t want a flower in the first place._

“It’s gotta be the prettiest!” Jin-hwan hollers and scares away a frog on the lily pad in front of him. “Not some dumb frog flower.” He kicks at a stone by the pond. Girls at his school always liked white plain flowers like lilies but his mother is prettier than any of them so the flower has to be colorful, it has to be.

Around one corner of the temple is another door, half open and dusty. It stings his eyes when he climbs back up on the porch and steps inside. Canvases blanket whatever is kept inside with only a narrow, smooth cement path weaving a maze between covered chairs and old artifacts. Jin-hwan remembers his mother telling him on the way that his grandfather has lots of very important stuff, so don’t touch very much, alright?

Rebelliousness is a gift sometimes.

One tiny foot catches and slips on one cover and it falls, revealing a piano splintered and yellowing with age. Even the bench comes up over Jin-hwan’s shoulders. Curious, he hoists himself up with flailing legs until he’s standing and can reach the keys with tiny hands, each old ivory block as wide as two of his fingers.

It makes a horrible noise when he pokes the key, hard. Like a dying grandfather clock. He tries again, this time softer and two steps higher. The bass vibrations stir something deep within Jin-hwan’s chest; fascinated, he plays the next key. And the next. The next. This time with both hands. He presses down random keys, a personal experimentation, the pretty notes tinkling like raindrops on wind chimes. Breathless, Jin-hwan doesn’t know how long he’s played until he notices his breath catching and his knuckles hurting.

“Jin-hwan!” He jumps, it’s his mother, peeking out from the door, his grandfather nowhere to be seen. Immediately he turns to bow in a hurried apology only to stop halfway when he notices the sparkle in his mother’s eyes and the smile on her lips.

“Jin-hwan,” she says again, “did you know your father has a piano as well?”

_It wasn’t his. He bought it for my mother. She gave it to me. Year Nine: my hands and mind have grown._

A tap dance on an ivory stage. Yeo Jin-hwan participates in piano nationals in front of a crowd of thousands, some sitting on the floor and in the aisles. Chopin’s Raindrops flow from the piano like a steady tremulous storm, sweat beading on his forehead with the pace of the crescendo. Sweat beads on his hairline, his leg cramps, and with the final note resting, the thunderous rise of applause, Jin hwan finally releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

The light burns his vision when he turns to bow, exhilarated. His hair is a bit too long, a bowl cut that tickles his ears, and it sticks to his forehead when his eyebrows raise in recognition of his mother, front row seats, clapping the most animatedly out of the crowd of hundreds. He bows once more, just for her, and gathers his things before exiting stage left.

His father is waiting by the exit, umbrella in hand. “Jin-hwan.” He gestures toward the exit and Jin-hwan nods.

“Father.” Jin-hwan acknowledges and steps under the umbrella. “Mother was happy.”  
  
“She always is. I think you could have done better.” Jin-hwan doesn’t flinch.

“I only missed a couple of notes. My piano teacher was absent last month, but I p–”

“There are no excuses for missteps.” His father cuts in. “A trip is the first step to a fall. I will call your teacher tonight and have him over after school tomorrow.”

Jin-hwan doesn’t look at his father or the chauffeur when he scoots into the backseat of the car, clutching his books and the note his mother had given him beforehand. “He has a new baby.”

“An hour is nothing in the world,” his father brushes off the concern, “be ready at four tomorrow. Hyo-jeong,” he barks, “pull to the front and wait for Eun-jae.”

The chauffeur nods without answer. Once his mother arrives she sits next to his father, filling the silence with gentle reproach about the piano teacher. She passes him his award from over the seat, first place, and Jin-hwan clutches it so hard the letters leave imprints in his palm.

_The first prize I won. Not the last one I’d ever receive. Year Ten: the world grows as well._

“First place–Yeo Jin-hwan, of Seoul, Korea!” Thunderous applause causes the auditorium to vibrate under Jin-hwan’s shoes, pristine and polished for the occasion. The runner ups, representatives from Europe and China, turn their running noses away when Jin-hwan receives his prize–gold on oak wood, his name engraved with precision that even he is impressed by. The ten year old prodigal son to the Yeo family, Jin-hwan doesn’t stay long; he weaves his way around frothing reporters and music fans alike to find his mother.

“Mother? Excuse me, eomma? Mother?” He cups a hand around his mouth and calls around the backstage area. Much like at his first competition, he finds his father instead, waiting with an umbrella in hand again.

“Who raised you to yell indoors?” His father remarks as he opens the umbrella. Jin-hwan steps closer, wary of his father’s terse mood.

“I’m sorry. Where’s Mother?” The rain and humidity makes his hands stick to the gold plating. Something in the blankness of his father’s face, more stony than usual, sets his stomach in a whirl of nausea.

“Eun-jae’s at home. Hyo-jeong took her there halfway through your performance.”

“Is she sick again?” Jin-hwan pries carefully. His father doesn’t answer until Hyo-jeong pulls up at the curb.

“Yes. The doctor came to the house this time.”

Jin-hwan bites his lip and answers as shortly as he can without his voice wavering, “Oh.”

My mother had no history of illness except for lovesickness, in love with a man with power instead of heart. Even a child could see the sickness killing her.

“Eomma,” Jin-hwan knocks on the door to his parents’ room. Nobody answers; the house help is working on dinner. “Eomma,” he starts again, this time pushing it open with both hands, the ornate design heavy weight against him, “I’m coming in.”

At his mother’s right is the doctor; his father is nowhere to be seen. Doctor Hye-bin is a nice lady, fresh faced and with easy hands but the white of her uniform washes out his mother to a sickly pallor. No flush is evident on her cheek, so Jin-hwan steps in closer and places one warm, damp palm against her cheek.

“Hi eomma,” he whispers, “I did really well today.” The doctor places two fingers against Eun-jae’s wrist while scribbling on a clipboard with the other. “I won a prize. Do you want to see?”

Eun-jae’s eyelashes flutter but she smiles nonetheless, thin-lipped without the usual wash of color to her face. “Jin-hwan, come up on the bed and tell me. I’m very sleepy. Doctor, please help me scoot.”

Polite as ever, even in ailing health. My mother was, is, a holy Madonna.

Hye-bin helps Eun-jae situate herself enough so that Jin-hwan can settle himself in the empty space beside her; for the first time ever he considers his short stature a blessing. He can sit cross legged beside his mother as the doctor works, one of her hands held in both of his and the award placed in his lap.

“Such a pretty award, Jin-hwan,” Hye-bin comments. “Is it real gold?”

“Uh-huh, I mean, yes ma’am,” he replies, squeezing his mother’s hand when she flinches at a needle in her arm. “Hey, why does she need a shot?”

“This is to keep her hydrated,” the doctor hangs the bag of fluids on its silver stand. “Your mother is going to be weak for a while, but she’s doing fine now.” The false assurance is lost on Jin-hwan, he knows his mother. The mother who brought him up on one arm while the other toiled away online to people she would rather not talk to, the mother who stood as prettily as a statue but as solid as iron by his father’s side. Even now she looks more like porcelain than a statue. “Okay,” Jin-hwan breathes. “I mean, yes ma’am.”

The obvious tension melts out of Hye-bin’s shoulders at his verbal acquiescence. Jin-hwan is ten years old and not stupid; he knows when to and to not to ask questions with answers that he doesn’t want. Instead he lies down and curls up by her side, unstirring until far after Hye-bin has left and the sky bleeds dawn at the horizon.

_Year Fifteen. A fade to black. Cue card reads: I am Numb. I am numb, I feel nothing, a son of novacaine and no affection. To hold me is to hate me._

                     Yeo Jin-hwan is so hot.

Bathroom graffiti takes place of gossip. Underneath Jin-hwan’s desk girls from previous classes and lunch periods tape notes and cellophane wrapped candies and proclaim their undying affection amidst the wads of chewed gum and pencil marks. He has the hairstyle of the biggest popstars of the day, fringe swept aside and his dark hair layered nicely down to his ears, and he doesn’t know it. They mention big name record deals and he furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

Jin-hwan is fifteen and a zombie.

“Will mother be able to make it?” Jin-hwan slides over the form for the school’s Sports Day roster to his father with the cold grace of a business deal.

“I can’t see into the future,” is the reply and the signature is given with a flourish. No stimulation, no acknowledgement. Sometimes Jin-hwan wishes his father would yell at him or something.

There hasn’t been a sound in his house in five years save for the shuffle of housekeepers and paperwork. Like clockwork Jin-hwan goes home and does his homework in bed beside his mother, still as frail as the day of his competition. He hangs all his awards around her bed; there are fifteen now. She only smiles in her sleep when he bids her quiet hello and doesn’t leave until his eyes start to burn from the sun and lack of sleep. Girls always comment on his sleepy eyes.

Jin-hwan has empty zombie eyes.

The days before the competitions move in the same manner as him: slow, without trepidation, but aimless. Hours after school are spent on the track or hunched over a desk. He’s only grown by inches since he was ten, eleven, twelve but he dubs it a property of being aerodynamic. He’s going to win with his eyes closed, he promises his father.

The problem with closed eyes is that eventually they must open.

On the morning of Sports Day Jin-hwan receives a note from the girl sitting beside him. Ji-yeon is a nice girl, pretty. Movie star pretty, her mother is a local news reporter and fashion columnist. The way she writes his name is so cute, too, manuscript curling like dancing stars and her punctuation is hearts and smiles. It makes him queasy just to think about it too long. She’s the perfect girl for him, the kind he should bring home to his father.

He politely bows his head when he gives her a negative response, scathing with the lack of real sorrow. Ji-yeon cries on cue and calls him a bastard.

“I know.”

“Jin-hwan is so cold.”

“I know.”

“Why can’t you say anything different! I want to be mad at you!” She cries and wipes at her face with the backs of her wrists.

“Would that make you feel better? Then go ahead.”

Ji-yeon storms off, frustrated.

Women are so complicated.

                        Everyone knows Yeo Jin-hwan.  
                                                   Even his teeth are insured. 

Heads turn when the second year roster is announced. Jin-hwan stands shorter and younger, having skipped a grade and a growth spurt, yet more intimidating than all of the others. He has his father’s eyes.

Those eyes don’t blink even when the starting shot is fired.

Jin-hwan overtakes fourth, third, second place as if riding the breeze. He’s done this a thousand times before, much faster than this, but today he’s having a harder time breathing. Ji-yeon’s eyes are full of hurt, watching him come around the curve of the track. She whispers to another girl beside her and two other girls behind nod and agree. All eyes on him. He hasn’t felt this watched since he was born.

His heart rate is catching up to his pace, running side by side with the upperclassman in first. Now Jin-hwan is first. Now second. First again. His lungs burn with something unknown–all he does know is that he has to win, he absolutely has to win.

_Why did I have to win?_

Jin-hwan’s father is there.

Tucked snugly beside Hyo-jeong and one of his security, his father watches him race with all the cold calculation of a scientist laying out a dead experiment’s organs, wet with blood and residual fear. His suit is immaculate, hair combed with precision sharper than a knife, and the upperclassman whispers heatedly, “Your dad come to make sure you win? Brought his wallet too, I bet.” Jin-hwan doesn’t get a chance to answer before he’s cut off with a nasty, “Rich boy doesn’t _like_ to play fair.”

_Just like my father._

At the last syllable drop, Jin-hwan stops dead in his spot, watching the upperclassman’s back. He looks over his shoulder once with bewilderment but goes on to win. Class 3 gets an award for their display case. Jin-hwan catches his breath as the second, third, fourth place winners take their win. Somehow, he can’t feel much sorrow about his position.

_Just like my father._

It’s not fair. Jin-hwan’s heart wells up for the first time, an aching stretch of his soul; his mother is the one who should be here, cheering him on from the stands and turning heads in awe. His mother is the one who should have bid him goodbye this morning, wishing him luck and telling him she’s proud. Instead Jin-hwan had kissed her forehead and said goodbye without receiving any response but a soft sigh against his chin. His mother in the cold sterile bedroom and his father looking for all the world like he’d rather be strangling something, Jin-hwan waits for the last runner to pass him and, looking pointedly at his father, begins to walk.

He finishes dead last, a whole two minutes behind the final participant. Jin-hwan is glad that there are no medals for participation.

Even the walk across the grass to meet his father feels like a weightless dream, empty-handed of any awards or accomplishment. Yeo Jin-hwan does not lose. He brings pride and future to the Yeo corporation.

The Yeo corporation now has one large hand on Jin-hwan’s shoulder, gripping so tightly that threads pop and five heavy points of pain bloom under his skin. Jin-hwan loves the flash of sensation.

_Please, I begged him in my mind. Please hit me. Smack me. Jerk me up like a street rat and shake me around like a broken doll. To this day the thrill of my father’s anger lingers fresh in my mouth, like copper and excitement._

“What,” his father begins, low and dangerous lest a scene unfold, and Jin-hwan stares straight ahead, “is your explanation for this one, Jin-hwan?”

“I don’t have one.” His voice is surprising in its emptiness. The hand around his shoulder turns white knuckled.

“You will have one by the time we get home. Go to Hyo-jeong.” His tone is as warning as the final order before the execution.

_So just gimme the gas, doc!_

Hyo-jeong is quiet and reserved on the way home. “Jin-hwan,” he tries, “why did you do it?”

“Because I hate him.”

Hyo-jeong’s posture actually relaxes.

“I am glad–” Careful now. “I, ah. I am just very happy that Jin-hwan… has grown up so well to think for himself. I think you’re growing very strong.”

Momentarily, Jin-hwan thinks that Hyo-jeong would be a better father. His own father could be the chauffeur, listening intently without the chance of becoming part of their conversations. Jin-hwan wants to deprive him, cut off the circulation to his ego.

“But please… be careful. I would be sad if something happened to you.”

And what better area to start with than with himself, his father’s future, gutting his dreams at the core.

_Commence phase one. Cue committing the ultimate rebellion of blood against blood. I am sixteen and angry beyond teenage angst. My first tattoo is done under inner city rafters using a lighter and a needle and shoe paint. Just those momentary actions bring enough long-term satisfaction to outweigh the sharp jabs and gross hands holding my arm still. It trembles only when I write._

_It certainly didn’t tremble the first time my father and I fought._

_I am sixteen, angry, and thrumming with self-satisfaction._


End file.
